Cyprus News Agency

The Cyprus News Agency was officially established on February 16, 1976 at the initiative of the then Director General of the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC) Andreas Christofides, who saw the need for a national news agency for Cyprus. Previously, a private news service under the same name had been set up by Miltiades Christodoulou, in 1957. On his appointment as director of the government Press and Information Office (PIO), he handed over to journalist Christakis Katsambas. The operation closed down in 1967. With the official launching of CNA, Christofides appointed Andreas Hadjipapas, a journalist working for CyBC and correspondent for UPI and AFP in Cyprus, as chief editor of the Agency. Technical facilities were provided by the PIO, thus enabling Hadjipapas to dispatch a daily news bulletin in English to Reuters and the Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool. In 1984, CNA expanded its activities, hired journalists and other staff and secured translation and distribution of its dispatches in other languages apart from English. In 1989, the Cyprus House of Representatives approved legislation providing for the operation of the Cyprus News Agency as a "semi-governmental" news organisation with full editorial independence